Ukrainian troops have celebrated what appears to be a surprise attack on Vladimir Putin's troops behind enemy lines.
According to WarTranslated, an Estonian blogger who has been documenting Russia's war on Ukraine, the video was filmed in the Kursk region. Russia has been fighting to maintain their control over the region after a retaliatory incursion by Volodymyr Zelensky.
The dramatic footage, which could not be independently verified by Newsweek, appears to show Ukrainian troops sneaking up on Russian soldiers, shooting to kill and launching grenades.
The video also shows a group of men who appear to be Russian soldiers being taken captive by the Ukrainian forces. They then are filmed kneeling along a road saying the Ukrainian Army saved them and "We are soldiers of the 810th Brigade, Marine Corps Fir." They made these statements under captivity.
In November, Russia sent 50,000 new troops to the Kursk region, including a reported 10,000 North Korean recruits.
This offensive was met with a strong Ukrainian defence, according to statistics from Kyiv, and videos from Ukrainian bloggers.
Drone footage from the Kursk offensive in November showed tanks being blown up by Ukrainian defenses in what was referred to as a "meat grinder" and statistics on Russian losses, according to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, show that Russia has lost nearly 750,000 troops since the beginning of the war.
Although Russia does not release their own casualty figures, Vladimir Putin's cousin, who is also the Deputy Minister for Defense and a State Secretary, let it slip during a live Duma broadcast that authorities had received 48,000 DNA test requests from people searching for and trying to identify missing soldiers.
Callum Fraser, a Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Newsweek: "I expect that Russia is ramping up its efforts in order to gain as much territory before Trump is inaugurated to have a stronger bargaining position before these supposed negotiations take place. As a result they are taking much larger numbers of casualties, and I expect that more men are being captured as a result.
"Therefore, Ukraine is under significant pressure, especially for the last couple of months. As ever, they require a regular, continued assistance of military equipment from the West."
The war, which has been ongoing for over 1000 days, recently heated up over the Biden Administration decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike into Russia.
In response, Putin lowered Russia's threshold for a nuclear strike.
Despite showing videos of victorious Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine has sustained some serious losses to the ongoing Russian invasion. Russia has made gains in the Donetsk region, and other areas that Ukraine had previously been able to stabilize.
Emil Kastehelmi, from the Finnish-based Black Bird Group, told Newsweek for a previous article: "The trend is very worrying, and there's no reason to expect the situation to calm down in December either."
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